Week in Lithuania | ECHR rejects complaint by president’s widow; President, Deutsche Bank CEO meeting

Last week, MPs doubted necessity for a new probe into CIA prison; LCB head says ECB might cut interest rates in summer
Foreign minister calls on West to care about its own security
The West has to be concerned about its own security, not Russia’s future, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in Davos on Thursday, the 18th of January. Lithuania’s top diplomat was one of the keynote speakers at the WEF session on “Russia: What Next?”, along with European Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis, Romanian Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. Speaking about sanctions, Landsbergis said that new instruments should be sought to deter Russia. “If we really believe in Ukraine’s victory and if we want to help it, we must not forget that the European Union is also a trading bloc that for some reason applies trade regimes that favour autocratic regimes…Sanctions against Russia are working, but we have to look for and find new instruments to deter Russia,” he said.
ECHR rejects presidential widow’s annuity, residence complaint against Lithuania
The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday, the 18th of January, rejected a complaint filed against Lithuania by Kristina Brazauskienė, the widow of the country’s former President Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas, who died almost 14 years ago, after she was denied a state annuity and a state residence. Brazauskienė complained that she had been discriminated against because the authorities refused to grant her a state annuity and a residence in Vilnius. The ECHR, however, pointed out that Brazauskienė was provided another social payout, a signatory’s widow’s pension, in 2020 as Brazauskas was also a signatory of the Act of the 11th of March. Moreover, according to the government resolution, she was paid retroactively, i.e. from the 23rd of July, 2010, when she became a widow. The Strasbourg court also noted that, under Lithuanian law, two pensions cannot be paid for the same period. As regards the refusal to grant Brazauskienė a state residence, the court stated that the house where she had lived with the former president and wished to stay for life was located in a protected area and that she was not entitled to state protection.
Two Belarusians detained in Vilnius railway station
Two Belarusian citizens were detained by railway station security staff in Vilnius on Wednesday, the 17th of January, after their got off a transit train. The incident took place at Vilnius railway station at around 10.20 p.m. Two Belarusian citizens, 52 and 44, got off the stationary Kaliningrad-Saint Petersburg transit train when the carriage door was opened. They were immediately detained by the train station’s security guards. It was established that the Belarusian citizens had valid Schengen visas and they left for Belarus on the same train.
Minister says Russian grain transit via Latvia ‘a big problem’
The transit of Russian grain through Lithuania poses no major concern as most of it goes via Latvia, which is “a big problem”, Transport Minister Marius Skuodis said on Wednesday, the 17th of January, Skuodis discussed the issue later on Wednesday in a remote meeting with Latvian Transport Minister Kaspars Briskens and Estonian Climate Minister Kristen Michal. Aušrys Macijauskas, head of the Lithuanian Association of Grain Growers, said in December that Russian grain was transiting through Latvia in large quantities, with some of it entering Lithuania. Agriculture Minister Kestutis Navickas then said that Russian grain was being transported through Latvian ports, but that it did not reach the port of Klaipėda. However, Navickas did not rule out the possibility that Russian grain might be brought to Lithuania by falsifying their origin documents, adding that the Latvian government should take action.
President, Deutsche Bank CEO meet in Davos
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda met on Tuesday, the 16th of January, with Christian Sewing, CEO of Deutsche Bank, one of the world’s largest financial institutions, on the sidelines of the the World Economic Forum in Davos. They discussed, among other things, the bank’s potential investments in Lithuania. Nausėda invited representatives of the German bank to participate in the Business Forum at the Three Seas Initiative Summit to be held in Vilnius in April. “Economic relations between Lithuania and Germany, both in trade and investment, have been developing at a rapid pace for decades, but in recent years bilateral cooperation has reached a new level,” the Lithuanian president said.
LCB head says ECB might cut interest rates in summer
Gediminas Simkus, head of Lithuania’s Central Bank (LCB) and a member of the European Central Bank Governing Council, does not rule out that the ECB might start cutting interest rates this summer, saying that financial markets are too optimistic in hoping that this will happen as early as in the spring. “While the probability of a reduction in borrowing costs is growing as the year progresses, it may only happen somewhere around the summer,” Bloomberg quoted the Lithuanian central bank governor as saying in an interview.
MPs sceptical about need for new probe into CIA prison
Members of the Seimas Committee on National Security and Defence (CNSD) are sceptical about the need for a new parliamentary inquiry after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday ruled for the second time that a secret CIA prison had operated in Lithuania. Conservative MP Laurynas Kasčiūnas, the CNSD chairman, said it was not worthwhile. The ECHR ruled back in 2018 that Lithuania had hosted a secret CIA prison for terror suspects between 2005 and 2006 and that Abu Zubaydahl, a Saudi national, had been held there. The Strasbourg court ruled on Tuesday, the 16th of January, that Mustafa al-Hawsawi, another Saudi national, had been also unlawfully held at the site and awarded him 100 000 euros. The US Senate’s report on the use of torture by the CIA of terror suspects in secret detention centers in the wake of the 9/11 attacks did not name any specific countries, but human rights activists believe that the site referred to as “Violet” in the report was located in Lithuania. This evidence was also used by the ECHR.
Finance minister expects EU decision on frozen Russian assets in February
Lithuanian Finance Minister Gintarė Skaistė said on Tuesday, the 16th of January, she expects the European Union to decide on ways to identify, separate and use profits from frozen Russian assets in the West for Ukrainian purposes by the end of February. “We welcome the proposal made by the European Commission about using the extraordinary profits of Russian frozen assets, but at the same time we must understand that it is the first step, but not the last one. We need to make this decision quite fast because this decision will not be implemented retroactively, this means that every day counts,” the minister told reported in Brussels after an ECOFIN meeting.
Lithuania’s top prosecutor asks Seimas to strip MP of immunity
Lithuanian Prosecutor General Nida Grunskienė on Monday, the 15th of January, formally asked the parliament to strip MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis of his legal immunity. Grunskienė’s request to allow the prosecution of the MP is based on evidence gathered in a pre-trial investigation opened last May on suspicions of public ridicule, contempt for and incitement to hatred against a group of people, the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a press release. The evidence suggests that Žemaitaitis posted anti-Semitic texts on Facebook, in which he “publicly ridiculed, expressed contempt for and incited hatred against a group of people of Jewish nationality”, it said. Žemaitaitis, who has legal immunity from prosecution, has been questioned as a special witness in the probe. The Constitutional Court last month accepted for examination the parliament’s petition asking the court to look into whether Žemaitaitis broke his oath of office and grossly violated the Constitution by his anti-Semitic Facebook posts of the 8th and 9th of May and the 8th and 14th of June.
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